


Knowing Me, Knowing You

by doctovstrange



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Cuddling & Snuggling, Deaf Clint Barton, Family, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Nightmares, Not Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Not Beta Read, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Steve Rogers, Slow Burn, Slow Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-23
Updated: 2018-09-29
Packaged: 2019-06-15 01:43:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15402219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doctovstrange/pseuds/doctovstrange
Summary: Steve held back a gasp. This was, without a doubt in his mind, his best friend, looking the same way he had the day they’d met. He didn’t understand, how could that be possible? He moved slightly closer, trying to look the boy in the eye.“Bucky?” he whispered, placing his hand against the boy’s tiny face.What happened? He wanted to ask, refraining as he knew Bucky probably wouldn’t understand what had happened to him.The small voice startled him slightly, “A-are you my daddy?”





	1. What Happened to Bucky?

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first Steve/Bucky fic, so I hope you all enjoy it. The title is from the song of the same name by ABBA because I've been listening to the Mamma Mia 2 soundtrack on repeat for the past week.
> 
> All rights go to Marvel and Disney.
> 
> Please enjoy!

Everything had been going well. Or as well as could be expected, Steve supposed.

In the light of a hot summer’s day, the sun beating down on the team and causing everyone to sweat profusely in their suits, the Avengers defeated their enemy. Another man had attempted to perfect extremis, except this time there was barely a person left once the formula had entered their body.

Monsters, as the news described, walked the streets, body parts turning to lava and falling, only to multiply and create a vaster population. The more of them there were, the angrier they became at the people walking the streets. They tried to talk but only fire left their mouths, causing people to run away from them, screaming in terror.

Steve had stared at them, tuning out the calls of ‘Cap’ from his teammates, wondering whether they just wanted to say goodbye to the people that they had loved when they were human.

He never got a chance to ask.

“Hey, Capsicle,” Tony had almost yelled down the coms, “wanna let us in on the plan?”

Steve shook his head slightly, attempting to alleviate the cloudiness that had formed as he considered whether the extremis failures were still people, “How did you deal with extremis last time?” he asked, thinking he already knew the answer.

“I blew up all my suits, watched my girlfriend fall to her probable death, and then she blew up Killian,” he heard Tony say, the man himself coming to land parallel to where he stood, watching the extremis grow in number, “I think we should count ourselves lucky that these ones don’t blow themselves up,”

“ _Tony_ ,” he knew that he was only trying to lighten the mood, but he couldn’t help but snap at him, “so, we’ve got to round them up,” he swallowed, “and blow,”

Tony rolled his eyes, glad that Steve was unable to see him, “I’m sorry to say this, Cap, but these people were dead as soon as extremis was in their bloodstream,” he sighed, “there was nothing we could have done for them,”

Steve knew that Tony was right, he couldn’t let his emotions take over and stop him from doing what was right for these people, and if that was killing them then, that’s what they had to do.

“Iron Man and Hulk, I need you to lead them to somewhere where it’s safe for us to deal with them,”

“Roger that, Cap,”

“Tony, do you have something that can… _deal_ with them all?”

“Sure do,” he said, taking off to go and find where Banner was standing.

Steve turned, scouring out his other two teammates currently hovering on top of a building, “Hawkeye and Widow, I want you to make sure none of them stray. We don’t know what they’re capable of,” he watched as Natasha signed his order to Clint, smiling as he received a thumbs up from him. He gave him a tiny salute back.

He’d spent many sleepless nights, before they’d found Bucky, learning sign language for his friend, sad that they were too far away from each other to be able to ensure Clint could see every part of the message.

“I’ll take up the rear, keep an eye on the back of the group,” he looked around, trying to meet everyone’s eyes, “let’s go,”

Everything from there for Steve was a blur. He remembered the heat of an explosion, not sure where they all were or how Tony had made it happen, and then a hand gripping his tightly. When he turned, Clint smiled sadly at him, pulling on his arm to get him to move.

Tony always told him that he took their missions too close to his own heart. Perhaps he was right.

“You know me, Cap, always right,” Tony said, Steve clearly having said the last part out loud. The man had taken his suit off completely, his arms crossed as he studied Steve thoroughly, a smirk plastered on his lips.

Steve humoured him, smiling slightly in return, “sure you are, Stark,”

And then the quinjet took off, everyone leaving Steve to himself.

Each member of the Avengers, including Thor when he wasn’t trying to prevent Loki from causing the fall of Asgard, knew how much of a toll having Bucky back was on Steve. The man he loved, the man who clearly didn’t love Steve back no matter how many times the team told Steve that it was obvious that he does, had been living in the tower for six months now. Steve couldn’t bear to let him stay anywhere else, so he shared his floor now with Bucky in the hopes that it would help him recover from the seventy years of brainwashing that he had endured.

Steve would spend his days watching Bucky struggle without an arm, trying to shave or make pancakes, or train properly, without giving up halfway through due to frustration. He was refusing to use the arm that Tony had designed for him during the first month of his stay because Bucky said he reminded him too much of Howard.  

Bucky had hated Howard from the moment he met him, gone was the admiration he’d had for him at the Stark Expo months before, leaving only hatred for a man who clearly didn’t agree with treating women the right way.

It was safe to say that Bucky and Tony didn’t really get on from there, Tony still bristling from being compared to his father, and Bucky not trusting anyone, including himself.

Steve would then spend the nights sleeping when he could, immediately getting himself out of bed at the first signs of distress from Bucky. He would wake his friend, sometimes receiving a punch or two to the face, sometimes ending up with a hand holding him to the floor by his throat, only to hold him close as Bucky wept into his shoulder.

It had been six months of the same game.

Get up. Run. Shower. Eat. Help Bucky. Calm Bucky. Eat. Try to convince Bucky to have his arm fixed. Train. Eat. Watch a movie with Bucky. Put Bucky to bed. Eat. Go to bed. Wake up. Calm Bucky down. Go to sleep.

Repeat.

Steve could feel it beginning to suffocate him.

Steve didn’t want to let Bucky go, even if he wasn’t the man that Steve fell in love with eighty years previously. He wanted what was best for Bucky, of course, but sometimes, when you love someone, you have to let them make their own decisions and find their own way.

The only kind of break he got now was when they were on a mission, and even then, his mind was usually plagued with thoughts of Bucky struggling in the tower without him. He _hated_ every second of it.

The team left the quinjet, trying not to think too hard about the debrief they were about to suffer through with Fury staring at them in the way only he could manage. They all laughed and joked between themselves. Everyone except Steve.

Steve just wanted to see Bucky, a friendly face even if the man didn’t know it.

He followed his team through the tower into the meeting room, not speaking but watching as they conversed with one another. When Bucky had arrived, Steve had started to give all of his time to his friend, spending less time with the team despite Tony’s protests.

“I’m the only one who can go missing in this tower for days on end, capiche,” he had said, Steve trying to smile in response.

“Whose idea was it to blow innocent civilians up?” Fury asked through Stark’s projection system, everyone turning to look at Steve.

Steve cleared his throat, his chin rising to look Fury in the eye, “it was mine, sir. As Stark pointed out to me, they were dead when the virus was injected into them,” he shook his head, his hand moving to rest on the table, “there was nothing else we could have done, sir,”

Fury merely hummed, his eyes moving to pin Stark to his chair, Stark holding his hands up in surrender.

In the silence that followed, seeing his chance to defend his friends, Clint signed to his boss, and to the rest of the room, “ _Cap was right, you know_ ,”

Steve met Clint’s eye, smiling at him softly.

Fury continued his interrogation for another hour, Stark nearly falling asleep where he sat as the man repeated everything he had already said several times. Natasha was signing to Clint, making him laugh silently, his hand covering his mouth. And Bruce was rubbing his temples, clearly trying to keep the Hulk at bay.

When Fury’s image disappeared from the room, Steve got up abruptly, wanting to have a nice, long, slightly too hot shower before he went to see how Bucky was holding up.

On his way down to his floor in the lift, Jarvis informed him, “sorry to disturb you, Captain, but Sergeant Barnes appears to be distressed,”

Steve straightened his posture, readying himself for a fight against the person Hydra had made Bucky into.

When the lift opened, however, there was no sign of Bucky. Usually, when Bucky was in Winter Solider mode, Steve would return to their floor to find Bucky standing in the middle of the living room, surrounded by broken plates, or broken pieces of art.

This time there was nothing.

“Bucky?” he called out. No response came.

_Where could he be?_

Steve walked around, listening out for any kind of sign of Bucky.

“Jarvis?”

“Yes, Captain,”

Steve turned in a circle where he stood, “is Bucky definitely still here?”

“I am reading signs of life from Sergeant Barnes’ bedroom, sir. Perhaps looking there would be a good idea,”

Steve didn’t bother answering the AI, knowing that it was Tony’s fault that he would always receive ‘sass’, as Clint so eloquently put it, from him.

He didn’t hear anything from his friend, until he was standing outside Bucky’s bedroom door.

Inside he could hear sniffling as someone sobbed, clearly distressed. He placed his ear to the door, knocking on it softly, “Bucky?” he asked again. Only the sound of the sobbing becoming louder registered with Steve. He opened the door slowly, scanning the room to find his friend, or detect a possible threat.

Again there was nothing.

The only thing Steve could see that was out of the ordinary was a pile of clothes Bucky had obviously left carelessly on the floor. He couldn’t remember the last time Bucky had ever left clothes on the floor, years of serving and training ingrained in his mind.

“I hate it when things are messy,” he would tell Steve, understanding covering the captain’s face. He knew how difficult it was to live in the same tower as Tony and Clint, especially considering they were two of the messiest people Steve had ever met in his life.

The crying didn’t stop, words now mingling in with the sounds of sobbing. Steve couldn’t understand what they were clear enough, his eyes scanning the room again. He looked at the pile of clothes closer, watching as they moved slightly. He moved closer, not wanting to scare whatever was hiding under there. If it had something to do with Bucky, then he needed it safe.

“Daddy?” a small voice, a child’s voice, cried out from beneath the clothes, Steve’s heart stopping in his chest. He would recognise that voice anywhere.

_That’s not possible._

Kneeling he pulled Bucky’s t-shirt away from the top of the pile, the side of a small head revealed. _It is a child_. Steve swallowed the spit that had collected in his mouth, the sound of his heart beating heavily in his ears.

The small boy sat up, arms hugging his knees close to him. He was still sobbing to himself quietly, face stained red, and his blue eyes studying Steve carefully. If there weren’t so many thoughts running through his head at that moment, Steve would have felt for the boy. He couldn’t think clearly.

Steve held back a gasp. This was, without a doubt in his mind, his best friend, looking the same way he had the day they’d met. He didn’t understand, how could that be possible? He moved slightly closer, trying to look the boy in the eye.

“Bucky?” he whispered, placing his hand against the boy’s tiny face.

 _What happened?_ He wanted to ask, refraining as he knew Bucky probably wouldn’t understand what had happened to him.

The small voice startled him slightly, “A-are you my daddy?”


	2. Stevie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve tries to deal with seeing Bucky as a child

Steve remembers the first time he met Bucky, rain pouring down in the cold November air.

Bucky’s parents had died when he was relatively young, _not much younger than he was right now_ , he thought to himself, Steve not having met him until Bucky was nine and trying to avoid going back to the orphanage for as long as he could.

Steve still remembered clearly, as though as it had happened yesterday, the day that Bucky had jumped in to save Steve’s neck from a group of bullies. The boys had been picking on a girl, slightly younger and smaller than Steve had been at the time, which Steve couldn’t let happen. She got away but never said thank you to him, despite seeing him again afterwards. That’s not what Steve did it for though.

He couldn’t _stand_ bullies.

He’d been managing _just fine_ he had said to Bucky, the older boy’s knowing smirk on his lips, even from that age.

“Sure you were kid,” was the first thing Bucky had ever said to him, a full on laugh trying to push itself out of his lips. His Brooklyn accent was thick in each of his words.

Steve had bristled at the use of ‘kid’, his whole body tightening and his mouth forming a grimace that Bucky would later recognise was his defensive face, “has anyone ever told you you’re a jerk? Don’t call me ‘kid’,”

Bucky had flashed a smile that would later make all the girls around him swoon, especially when he suddenly became a man one summer without either of them truly realising, “what would you prefer?” he had asked, folding his arms across his chest, “punk?” his smile grew wide.

Steve had shaken his head, studying Bucky closely, before giving him a warm smile usually reserved for his mother, “what’s your name, jerk?” Steve had asked, shoulders back and holding his hand out, just as his mother had taught him.

Bucky had taken the tiny hand in his own tightly, moving them up and down together as he looked deeply into Steve’s eyes, “James Buchanan Barnes,” he had told him, pronouncing everything slowly, having sounded proud of his name, even if he hadn’t known who the men he was named after were, “my friends call me ‘Bucky’,”

Steve stared at their joined hands, smiling only in the corner of his mouth, “is that what we are then? _Friends_?”

Bucky’s smiled had faltered for a second, the hurt he had felt in that moment crossing his face and showing Steve exactly how he felt. Steve had pulled his hand away quickly, as though Bucky had burnt him, “sorry, I don’t have many friends,” he had apologised, Bucky’s stare fixing him where he stood.

“I wouldn’t stick my neck on the line for just anyone,” he had said softly, his whole body tense and prepared for rejection.

“Rogers,”

“Huh?”

“I’m Steven Grant Rogers, but only my mom calls me Steven,” the smaller boy had said, holding his hand out towards Bucky again as a sign of peace, “it’s real swell to meet you, Bucky Barnes,”

The smile Bucky had given him in that moment was ten times the size of the one he’d worn before, “and you, Steve Rogers,”

But that had been nearly ninety years ago now, and both Steve and Bucky had been through far too much to be innocent little school boys.

That still didn’t explain why there was a five year old (or so Steve reckoned because he had never seen Bucky this young before) Bucky sitting and sobbing on his bedroom floor.

“ _Please_ ,” Bucky cried out, the sound of his distress causing something in Steve to twist into a tight knot, “are you my, my daddy?” he asked again, getting only Steve’s silence in return. Steve didn’t know what he could say to make the boy feel any better.

He studied the boy carefully, noting to himself the thick Brooklyn accent that he used to have was missing from his words, “No, Bucky, I’m Steve,”

For a moment, recollection flashed in the small boy’s eyes, water still visible as he tried to hold back his tears, “Stevie?”

Steve startled at the name, not having heard Bucky call him ‘Stevie’ in over seventy years. Even when they’d moved him into Stark tower, Bucky had refused to call him anything but ‘Rogers’ or, on a good day, ‘Steve’.

He’d missed it.

“Yeah, Buck,” he sighed slightly, moving closer to his friend, “it’s me,” a tear fell from Bucky’s eyes, tiny arm wrapping itself tighter around his body as he sobbed to himself, “don’t you worry,” he said softly, placing one of his hands around Bucky’s shoulder, “we’ll find a way to sort you out.

 “J-Jarvis?” Steve stammered out, heart beating loudly in his ears as he stared at the child sitting before him.

“Yes, Captain Rogers?”

“Could you tell Doctor Banner that I’d like to see him in my room, please?”

“Of course, Captain,”

Steve, muttering to himself slightly under his breath, met Bucky’s eye. He smiled slightly at him, seeing Bucky’s true age in the blue staring back at him, trying to put the young boy at ease. He was surprised when Bucky smiled back, his entire face lighting up, and his body becoming relatively relaxed in comparison to what it had been like previously.

Overall Steve thought he looked rather… _adorable_.

It was then that he properly noticed that this version of Bucky only had one arm, much like the Bucky he had welcomed back into his life fairly recently. He tried not to stare at the stump that was left behind, remembering what it had been like when he’d seen Bucky’s for the first time as Tony gave him a new arm. He just hoped that he wasn’t in any pain because of it.

He moved closer, holding his hands out in surrender in an attempt not to scare the boy. Once he knelt on the ground, Bucky started to shuffle closer, clearly desperate to be as close to Steve as he could possibly get.

That only became clearer when he dove into Steve’s chest, startling the man slightly, sobs starting to shake his body where it touched Steve’s.

Steve processed what was happening for a moment, his arms lifting Bucky’s tiny body slightly so that he could hold the boy’s head against his neck, hoping that bringing him closer could provide him some sort of comfort. He couldn’t imagine how scared he was.

“It’s okay, Bucky,” he soothed, resting his cheek on top of the boy’s head, large hand stroking down his bare back, “we’ll sort this out,”  
  


* * *

 

It didn’t take long for Bruce to arrive, a quiet knock on Steve’s bedroom door alerting him to the scientist’s presence. Until that point, Steve had been rocking his friend slowly, trying to keep him as calm as possible. Eventually the sobs had cut off, exhaustion clearly having gotten to him.

The blonde turned to look at the man hovering at the door, a small smile crossing his face, “I didn’t know who else to turn to,” he said softly, Tony’s face briefly crossing his mind before he pushed it away. He didn’t want to bother Tony with something like this.

Bruce moved slowly into the room, hands rubbing together as he tried to take in the scene before him, “who’s that, Steve?” he asked, his eyebrows drawn together as though he already knew the answer to his own question.

Steve looked down at the small head of long brown hair, his hand still stroking across the boy’s naked back, “it’s Bucky,” he said calmly, his voice and words making him sound more collected than he actually felt, “he didn’t answer me when I got back,” tears appear in his eyes, seemingly from nowhere, “he always answers me when I call,”

“I know, bud,” Bruce said warmly, moving to crouch down next to the two of them together, he reaches one of his hands out slowly, “can I?” he asks, deciding that it’s better to ask permission before looking at the boy wrapped tightly in Steve’s arms, “we need to go to my lab, Steve,” he said softly.

Steve nodded, studying Bruce’s hand closely before looking down again, “I understand,” he sighed slightly, “I’ll carry him though,” he said, meeting Bruce’s sympathetic eye, “let me just wake him up,”

Bruce nodded slowly, folding his hands together again.

Steve shook the small boy slightly, “hey, Buck,” he said softly, trying not to startle the boy, “I need you to wake up for me,”

Bright blue eyes opened slowly to stare up at Steve. The man could see that they were slightly red and puffy from where he had been crying, his heart going out to him.

“Stevie, was ‘appenin’?” Bucky asked his voice full of the deep sleep he had just been in. Steve imagined that he would have hurt his throat with all the crying he had been doing.

“We’re going with Doctor Banner here,” he paused so Bucky could see Bruce’s tiny wave, “to get you checked out,”

Bucky shook his head, burying his face back into the warmth of Steve’s neck, “I jus’ wanna sleep, Stevie,”

“I know you do,” Steve said, lifting them both from the floor. He placed one hand on the back of Buck’s neck, and the other under his bottom to hold him up. Bucky’s arm wrapped around Steve’s neck, “you can sleep after Bruce has checked you out, alright?”

He smiled slightly at Bruce, feeling Bucky nod his agreement into his neck.

“Let’s go,”  
  


* * *

 

The trip to Bruce’s lab was relatively silent, the man tapping away on his Stark phone. Steve presumed that he was making preliminary notes on the situation before he got to study the boy properly.

Every now and again, Bucky would yawn, his tiny lips moving slowly across Steve’s neck, reminding him of the butterfly kisses the two of them would share when they were children.

The first time it had happened, Steve had been tripped over in the school playground, some older boys, who regularly picked on him, laughing as they walked away. Bucky, having seen the boys picking on him from the other side of the playground, had quickly come to Steve’s aid.

“Why don’t you pick on someone your own size?”

The bullies had just laughed, knowing better than trying to take on Bucky Barnes in a fight, leaving the two of them alone.

“You okay, pal?” he had asked, holding out a hand to help him up from the ground.

Steve shook his head slightly, “one day I’ll be big enough to take them all on,” he had said, more to himself than to Bucky.

Bucky just hoped that he was right, because the blonde couldn’t go on living like this. Trying to take on every bully in the school whilst also trying not to get himself killed by them.

Steve had brushed himself down, Bucky noticing the graze on his slightly knobbly knee. The older boy moved closer, Steve having said, “oh darn, mamma’s going to be so cross with me,”

Bucky had laughed slightly, the sound causing Steve to look up at him with slight betrayal, “I think she’ll be more pissed at me, punk,”

Steve had sighed, a warm smile on his face, “yeah, probably,”

Bucky had crouched to look closely at Steve’s knee, “does it hurt?” he had asked softly, knowing that he’d probably been through far worse.

Steve had shaken his head, more upset that he was tripped over _again_ , “nah, only wounded my pride,” the smaller boy had gasped, feeling a pair of lips press softly to the skin next to his wound.

Bucky had pulled away, a small smile grazing his lips, “all better,” he had said smugly.

Steve had flushed completely red.

The doors of the elevator opened, revealing Bruce’s floor in front of them, but Steve was too lost in his own memories to notice.

“Steve?” someone called out to him, fingers clicking in front of his face.

He startled back to himself, clutching Bucky tighter to his body. His eyes found their way to Bruce, the man’s face covered with concern.

“Sorry,” he said, walking from the elevator quickly.

“You were a bit lost there,”

“I was thinking of a time long ago,” Steve said sadly, placing Bucky down on an examination table. It was then that he realised that he’s carried Bucky down completely naked, embarrassment showing on his face.

“Oh, Buck, I’m sorry,”

“I’ll need him naked to look at him properly, Steve,”

Steve smiled slightly, his heart beating loudly, “of course, Banner, sorry,” he smiled brightly at the boy, “I’m just going to step over here and let Bruce look at you, okay?”

He waited for Bucky’s slow nod of affirmation, not wanting to stray too far from his friend, especially since this whole situation couldn’t have been anything less than terrifying for Bucky, “good lad,”

Steve moved so he was a couple of metres away from Bucky, Bruce standing in front of him. He didn’t want to hover like a mother hen, but he couldn’t just leave Bucky behind.

“Right,” Bruce said, “let’s begin then shall we,”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this took me so long to upload, I had really bad writers block for a while.
> 
> I hope you enjoy this chapter! I hope to have the next one up by mid-September, and it should be quite long.


	3. Pancakes!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bruce works out exactly what's wrong with Bucky, and Steve makes pancakes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter isn't as long as I wanted it to be, but it ends at a place where I think it should so. Enjoy!

“What was her name?”

Bucky had smiled, one his toothy smiles that only Steve had really gotten to see, swaying his body from side to side slowly, “why you so interested?”

Steve, sitting on the bed the two of them had shared together, arms hugging his knees to his chest, raised his eyebrows at his friend, “you were the one bragging about it, Buck,”

“Sure I was, Stevie,” Buck had said, walking across their box sized bedroom and sitting himself down against the headboard, legs stretched out in front of him, so that Steve could rest his head in his lap. He had stroked the blonde’s hair slowly, a goofy smile still plastered on his face, “Susie. Her name was Susie. God, Steve, she had this sweet little laugh and one of the prettiest faces I’ve ever seen,” he had paused for a moment, clearly lost in thought, “oh and the sounds she made, god if I could fuck her again I would,”

Steve had beamed up at the man he secretly loved, even at this point, trying to look as happy as he could without jealousy seeping through. If he had been honest to himself, he’d loved Bucky since the day they had met. The World they lived in demanded that they could never be together, the threat of death always looming over them both if Bucky ever found out the truth.

Steve had decided as soon as he’d worked it out for himself, around the age of thirteen, that he would never tell Bucky how he had truly felt about him, especially if it meant that Bucky was always safe.

Instead, he would find himself a nice dame to settle down with and, who knows, maybe he’d eventually learn to love her like he had always loved Bucky.

He had never been able to completely convince himself though, a small voice always niggling in the back of his mind that girls didn’t go on dates to be with him, they went to be with Bucky. He doubted that would ever change for him.

Bucky would come home, night after night, smelling of a different girl’s perfume, and covered in purple bruises and Steve would pine, in secret of course, mourning the loss of something that he could never have.

At fifteen and sixteen years of age, living in their own place, and barely making enough money to keep the roof over their heads, let alone buy food, the two of them had clung together, not willing to leave the other behind, no matter what stood before them.

That didn’t change, even in 1941 when Steve met Peggy Carter and he realised that it was possible to be in love with two people at the same time.

Peggy was different from Bucky in so many ways. But there were so many things that he loved about each of them that he couldn’t ignore. Their lips, the way he wanted to bite and suck on them until they were stained as red as the lipstick Peggy wore, their courage, even when terrified and preparing themselves to die, and their willingness to put themselves before anyone else.

From dank, dark alleyways to the battlefield, both Peggy and Bucky shone light into Steve’s life that he couldn’t ignore.

And then the 107thwent missing.

Of course, by this point, Steve knew that Phillips only believed him to be propaganda and thought there was nothing more to him than a strong body and ‘cutesy’ smile. That didn’t mean he would let Phillips get in his way.

Bucky _would_ come home, even if it meant that Steve didn’t.

“ _I thought you were smaller_ ,” Steve had tried not to let tears shine in his eyes, his love for Bucky at that moment, alive and smiling at him in the way that only he does, a hot overwhelming sensation from his head to his toes. He wanted to tell him how much he loved him, he really did.

“ _No! Not without you_ ,” why did Bucky always have to be so fucking stubborn? Steve had wondered this until the exact moment he realised he couldn’t get drunk with the super soldier serum running through his body.

Even though he hadn’t realised it at the time, Bucky had never been the same from the moment he’d woken up on that table. Hydra had already started their quest into his mind, trying to make him Captain America’s worst nightmare.

Steve had seen him struggling to smile, only for a few seconds, an internal battle clearly raging away as to whether this was Steve, his best friend from his childhood, or Captain America, the man whose name made the blood in his veins boil with the need to kill him.

For Hydra.  

And then Bucky fell.

Steve’s world falling along with him.

Bucky’s screams haunted him. Steve didn’t remember much from his time in the ice, but he remembered dreaming of that. The pain as half of his soul was torn form his body, brutally and without warning.

He supposed he should have known that one of them wouldn’t make it out alive.

He’d wanted to hope that they would make it back. Hope was all he had in the end, and even then, that had let him down.

Steve had wanted to drink, to wallow in his sorrows over Bucky’s death until he could no longer breath.

Less than a week later, he was on ice.

“Steve?” Bruce was looking at him in _that_ way again, and it really pissed Steve off. Just because he was out of his time and thinking about the past, reliving his life, didn’t mean that he had suddenly become a cause for pity.

He knew that pity wasn’t what Bruce meant by that look, deep down anyway, but he’d had it almost the entirety of his life.

When he was a small, sickly child who could barely defend for himself.

When he’d lost his mum, left an orphan with only Bucky to turn to for help.

When he was a small, brave young man, wanting to play his part in the war and being refused time and time again because of his stature and his health.

When he lost his best friend, _the love of his life_ that no one knew about, and couldn’t even get drunk as he mourned.

When he was woken up, and treated like glass, by Shield. Alone.

Steve didn’t want any more pity. Just like Bucky had not wanted pity when he had finally started to remember aspects of their time together.

Steve flashed a quick smile at Bruce, his arms crossed tightly across his chest, “I’m okay, Bruce,” he softened his voice slightly, trying not to be too angry at someone who didn’t understand how he felt.

“I do, you know,” Bruce said quietly.

“You do what?”

“Know how you feel,” Bruce was looking at the stub that replaced where Bucky’s arm should have been, “you forget that I tried to recreate the serum that was used on you, only to lose everything I liked about my life in the process. My girlfriend, my friends. No one wanted to be around me anymore, Steve,” Bruce met Steve’s eye, the years of extra wisdom that he had shining brightly in them, “I know how you feel,”

Steve could feel his heart breaking in his chest for his friend. He knew what it was like to be an experiment in his time, and he got off lightly. He couldn’t imagine having to go through what Bruce went through.

“I-,” Steve stammers, “I’m glad you’re here, Bruce,” he muttered, almost to himself.

Bruce smiled warmly at him, dropping the subject completely.

“How are you doing, Buck?” Steve asked the small boy sitting between them, rubbing a large hand over the bones in the boy’s back.

Bucky lifted his head, looking at Steve’s face over his head, a small smile on his face, “I’m a’ight, Stevie. Bruce has been real nice wiv me,” he moved his head back down to share a smile with Bruce, the older man’s warmth for the boy showing in every part of his face.

Steve smiled too, happy that his friend was feeling almost no distress. For once in his life.

Bruce stepped away from the small boy, handing him a lollipop that seemed to appear out of thin air, and taking his gloves off. Steve, noticing the sign that Bruce wanted to talk away from Bucky so that they wouldn’t worry him, followed Bruce, folding his arms across his chest.

“What’s the verdict, Banner?”

“I’ve conducted every test that I can think of, Steve, and I’ve had Jarvis run non-invasive scans on him, and the only conclusion the two of us can come to is that there is some form of,” he coughed slightly, wringing his hands together and trying not to look Steve in the eye, “ _magic_ ,”

Steve’s eyebrows rose, “magic?”

Bruce turned to stare at Steve, moving his hands into the pockets of his white lab coat, “Jarvis has informed Tony and I that he briefly felt a spike in his system, and that his sensors were taken off line –“

“You’re only telling me this now? We all knew that Bucky was the only one left in the building –“

“Steve! I understand that you’re concerned but Jarvis couldn’t have known. Tony said that the person who did this to Bucky knew _exactly_ what they were doing. They wiped everything Jarvis knew about Bucky’s biological make up, bar the fact that he actually existed,” Bruce turned to look at the small boy, still sitting naked on the table but sucking happily on a lollipop, “Tony’s trying to get everything Jarvis lost back, so that we can see exactly who did this but, I think we all know who would do something like this,”

Steve nodded slowly, realisation forming in his mind.

“Loki?”

Bruce grimaced, remembering everything that had happened in 2012 as a result of Loki’s allegiance with the Chitauri, how he’d lost control so completely that he’d nearly hurt the only people that had represented some form of family in his life at that moment.

He couldn’t let that happen again.

“But why would he do this?” Steve asked, studying his friend closely, “what does changing Bucky into a child achieve?”

Bruce shook his head, walking towards Bucky again, “I don’t know, Steve, but we should keep an eyes out,”

Steve sighed to himself, rubbing the bridge of his nose between two of his fingers.

Without Thor on Earth, Steve didn’t know how they would be able to contact Loki. He thought that Thor was confident that Loki would be punished for what he had done to New York. Apparently, Thor had been wrong.

Steve walked slowly towards Bucky and Bruce, hearing the small boy’s giggles as Bruce told him something particularly funny. Bruce had found a jumper for Bucky to wear, just long enough for them to find _something_ else for him to wear.

The smile that was on Bucky’s face was bright. He’d missed Bucky’s smile. Especially during the last six months, his friend trying desperately to find who he was again.

Bruce turned to Steve, holding Bucky’s tiny hand in his own, “I think Bucky would like to go back to your room now, Steve,” he smiled warmly, helping Bucky hop down off the table.

Bucky, the small smile still present on his face, looked Steve up and down slightly, “do you ‘ave any food, Stevie?”

Steve, picking the boy up so that he could hold him on his hip, the weight barely registering in his mind because Bucky was so small, nodded and smiled widely, “of course, I can make your favourite,” he almost sang, walking them both out of the lab and towards the elevator that would take them to the kitchen.

Just before the doors to the elevator closed, Bucky’s childlike babbling in his ear, Steve’s eyes met Bruce’s. The physicist gave him a small nod, his arms wrapped tightly around himself.

Steve didn’t deserve to be friends with Bruce, he decided.  
  


* * *

 

Once in the kitchen, a room that made Bucky’s eyes widen with how big, bright and expensive the whole place looked, Steve placed Bucky down on a kitchen stool. Bucky had been talking the entire way down in the elevator, Steve humming and filling in gaps with ‘oh really’ whenever he thought Bucky might appreciate them.

In reality, Steve didn’t really understand what Bucky was talking about. He had just missed him talking, period.

“What is my fa- favouoote,” Bucky stumbled over his words, something that Steve was completely unfamiliar with. The boy that he knew when he’d first met him was not far on the horizon, but Steve mourned the small loss, “favouoote food?”

Steve hummed comically, twirling around the kitchen as he grabbed a bowl, a frying pan and a whisk from various areas in the kitchen.

“Why should I tell you when I know you’ll love them?”

Bucky’s face lit up again, “ _them_?”

Steve laughed slightly, “of course them. It’s a well-known rule that with what I’m making you, you can’t just have _one_ ,” he walked over to the fridge, trying not to pull the door off like he’d done several times accidentally since he’d been out of the ice.

Tony had never said a word to him about it, he’d just replaced the fridge and refused to ask questions.

Sometimes Steve wondered what Tony was going through. The man cared deeply for the people around him, Rhodey and Bruce in particular, and had grown immensely over the time Steve had known him.

There were still times when Tony would be caught out though. A panic attack after a loud noise. A nightmare of his time in Afghanistan or of the wormhole he almost didn’t make it back through. Deep, dark bags under his eyes from where he’d not slept at night.

Steve had wanted to help Tony.

It ended up that Tony helped Steve. Well, he helped Bucky.

The two of them would disappear for hours down in Tony’s lab, and neither would mention what they’d done or what they’d talked about in the hours that they spent together.

All Steve knew was that, very quickly after Bucky’s arrival at the tower, Bucky had a new arm. The only mention Steve ever made about it, to Bucky, was the first night Steve woke Bucky up from a nightmare, the metal arm quickly finding its way around Steve’s throat and pinning him to the bed.

“That arm is pretty damn strong,”

Bucky had only grunted in response, turning over in the bed so that his back was towards Steve. From that night on, the two of them shared a bed, Steve no longer sleeping on the couch in the living room of his apartment.

“Whenever we could afford to, we’d go to this diner in the middle of Brooklyn and you’d always order the same thing. You loved them,” Steve said, measuring out enough flour to make pancakes for the both of them.

Bucky seemed to only get more excited, physically wriggling where he sat, and trying not to jump out of his chair, “please, Stevie, wha’ are you makin’?”

Steve moved close to Bucky, pretending as though he was about to whisper a secret into Bucky’s ear. Bucky moved himself slightly closer, wanting to know so desperately, and then his shrill giggle sounded out through the room, “Stevie, s-s-s-stop!”

Steve tickled Bucky, ensuring that the small boy stayed sitting on the stool, but allowed him to move around as much as possible to get away from his fingers. He tickled the boy until they were both out of breath, his jaw aching from how much he had been laughing. Neither of them had laughed that much in the past six months, the realisation of it all causing Steve’s chest to tighten.

He placed a small kiss onto Bucky’s forehead, overcome with affection for the boy and wanting to show him just how much he cared about him, even in his present state.

“Right,” he said, clapping his hands together dramatically and spinning himself around the kitchen again, “would you like blueberries, bacon and maple syrup, ice cream or… all of the above?”

Bucky stood himself up as much as he could on the stool, plastering his body over the breakfast bar and screaming enthusiastically, “all of them,” causing Steve to smile. Even at this age, Bucky had been a greedy little shit. The thought only made his affection for the boy grow.

Steve whisked the flour, salt, baking powder, and caster sugar together in a bowl, adding a splash of vanilla essence as he knew Bucky enjoyed pancakes with a bit of extra flavour to them. They’d eaten a fair few since Bucky had lived in the tower, the ex-winter soldier waking Steve up with the smell of pancakes whenever he knew Steve had experienced his own nightmare during the night.

He then added milk to the mixture, beating it all together.

Bucky was entranced watching Steve cook, understanding finally dawning on him, “pancakes!”

Steve laughed, a laugh that started in the centre of his chest, and slowly warmed up the rest of his body, “of course it’s pancakes, Buck, I’m surprised it took you so long to work it out,”

Bucky stuck his tongue out at Steve, rolling his eyes in a way that was just so _Bucky_. Steve had _missed_ this.

After several minutes of cooking both the pancakes and the bacon, Steve finally plated everything. The gorgeous smells mingling together and swirling around the two friends as they sat at the breakfast bar together.

Bucky waited, mouth watering at the sight of all the food in front of him, until Steve had sat down next to him. Steve watched as his body thrummed with excitement, “well, what are you waiting for?” he asked jokingly, forking a pancake onto his own plate, and smothering it in maple syrup.

Bucky dove in, putting as much as he could of everything onto his plate. Nothing changes from here on out, Steve thought to himself.

Once Bucky had finished, managing to clean his entire plate with relative ease, he watched as Steve washed the dishes, not wanting to have another heated argument with the ‘dishwasher’ that Tony had to repeatedly teach him how to use, with very little success. Steve didn’t understand why people didn’t just use soap and water like they had done in the 30’s.

By the time he had finished however, Bucky was dozing, his head resting on his arm on the breakfast bar, which made Steve smile. Bucky deserved to finally rest.  
  


* * *

 

Steve carried Bucky back to their floor, holding the warm body tightly to his and trying not to wake him.

“Captain Rogers, Mister Stark has left a package for you in the bedroom,” Jarvis informed him as the elevator doors opened on their floor. He shook his head back and forth slightly.

Now was not the time to deliver ‘packages’.

Steve quickly reprimanded himself though when he saw exactly what was in his bedroom.

Bags and bags full of clothes lined the walls. Boxes of toys suited to Bucky’s approximated age were stacked near to the door, allowing Steve to move around the room and stare at each individual box in turn.

“What the fuck, Tony,” Steve said to himself quietly, putting Bucky down onto the bed and tucking him in.

A small note on the bed caught his attention, ‘ _Hey Capsicle, you’ve got my back, and I’ve got yours. -T x_ ’

Steve smiled to himself, laughing at the situation. Tony Stark does have a heart, indeed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! I start at uni in a couple of weeks so I might not be able to update this until the end of October. See you then.


	4. Cuddles and bubbles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Child Bucky relives his past, and Steve tries to make it better.

Bucky’s life had changed drastically the moment he fell from the train, Steve’s blue eyes staring down at him, helpless and alone on the train. He could still hear his own scream echoing in his ears, vibrating through every bone in his body, even when he was buried deep in the snow, body aching and the cold tiring him out quickly.

Once they had found him, his lips blue and minutes away from death, they pulled at him, trying to get him out from the layer of snow he was buried under. They yanked on his right arm, three men with masks covering their faces, and tightly wrapped in coats, trying to keep him as whole as they could.

He noted briefly, in the back of his mind, that they didn’t care enough to check and see whether they were pulling him out in one piece or not. He tried to tell them to be careful; his lips too numb to form the words he needed.

He looked down.

His left arm was gone.

He whined loudly in his throat, the pain of losing a limb still not fully registering in his mind. He silently thanked the cold for keeping everything pain free, hoping that it would kill him before the men carrying him could torture him any further.

Little did he know, that it was only a matter of time before James Buchanan Barnes was gone too.

Eventually they had sedated him. This was still the fourties though, so even the strongest sedatives didn’t help him. He spent the next year completely aware of everything they were doing to him.

Every day, it had felt like they were tearing him to shreds; the desperation from months before to keep him all in one piece gone.

Just like Steve was.

Who is Steve?

_My name is James Buchanan Barnes._

In the corner of the room there had stood a tall, muscular man, blonde and _beautiful_ and not like the other men around him. This man had smiled at him. A smile that warmed his heart slightly and made him feel slightly more alive.

“ _You’re doing beautifully_ ,” the blonde man would say, never coming any closer to where Bucky strapped to a metal table

_My name is James Buchanan Barnes._

The room had remained silent around him, beside an occasional clunk of metal and the sounds of Bucky’s screams that had been so loud even he stopped hearing them eventually. The pain had moved through his bones, circling around every organ and pulsing through each one of his joints.

He could barely open his eyes, the pain too immense and the light so bright so that he couldn’t see the faces of the men tearing him apart and building him to something more than he had been before. He wanted to go home.

“ _Wipe it_ ,”

_My name is James Buchanan Barnes._

The days were long, and the nights… even longer. He’d wake up screaming and tire himself out until he finally became unconscious and dreamt of his home, far away from here. A warm home with a blonde man, a small man. A sickly man with the brightest smile he had ever seen.

_Gone._

The blonde man in the corner of the room still came to see him. He was always there when Bucky was in pain, the kindness in his eyes giving Bucky a sense of hope that he would get out of this, whatever _this_ was, alive and that he’d be able to go home.

“ _You’re tired now, Bucky_ ,” the man said one day. Bucky had never felt more pain than he had felt in that moment. The Hydra men were yanking and shoving at his body, one side of him slowly becoming heavier than the other.

“ _It’s time to go to sleep_ ,” the blonde man had said, moving closer to him for the first time, his face hovering right above Bucky’s head. He had smiled that smile again, the one that filled every bone in Bucky’s body with warmth.

“Will you stay with me?” Bucky had asked, his eyelids falling shut as they had become heavier and heavier. He had felt his limbs as one by one they surrendered to the exhaustion that circled his body.

He felt a hand stroke through his hair, “ _of course I will_ ,”

“ _Wipe it_ ,”

_My name is James Buchanan B-_

His name was replaced with pain, the sound of drilling next to his head, and an emptiness inside him that he couldn’t quite shake. He had tried to open his eyes, so many times, to see what they were doing to him, but they wouldn’t let him, a rag covering his eyes.

There was something that they didn’t want him to see.

_My name is James Bu- James Buchan-_

One morning he was awoken, the cold of the room around him rattling through his bones and making him want to curl in on himself. The warmth that had been there once, long ago, was now gone. Replaced only with emptiness.

They had him tied down. Who would want a nameless man to run free?

Nameless?

_No, no my name is- my name is-_

That day, there had been no Hydra scientists around him. The lights still blared but the pain was almost completely numbed. He had wondered briefly whether they had given him something stronger.

Or maybe they’d finally gotten what they wanted.

Whatever that was.

His eyes had opened slowly, not used to such bright light after months of being forced to keep his eyes shut for as long as they wanted him that way.

Who knows how long he had been there, chained down to that table, or strapped into a chair. All he had known was the pain.

The room had been quiet, almost deathly so. He could hear his own heartbeat in his ears, and the soft movements of metal rubbing together close to him.

He had turned, trying to locate the sound and that’s when he realised.

It was him. He was making those sounds, his missing arm now replaced with one made entirely of cold, silver metal.

He groaned, moaning for his old arm, he didn’t want this.

Is this what they had been planning to do to him the entire time?

Whoever he was.

He roared, pulling, trying to get himself free.

A voice from above sounded, “ _Winter Soldier, remain where you are_ ,”

Who was the Winter Soldier?

He had pulled and he had pushed and he had moved the metal arm as much as he could, the leather strap holding him down eventually snapping with a satisfying noise, loud in the silence of the room.

An alarm had sounded above him at that moment, the sound high pitched and causing him to wince in pain.

Clearly, the alarm had been used in order to put him under some form of sedation, or at least knock him out, but it wasn’t working. He had a chance.

It only made him work harder to get himself free.

He had torn at the other straps, finally managing to pull his body free. He had been free, for the first time in- _how long have I been here?_ – but his body hurt.

He wanted the arm off.

He dug his nails in to the remaining skin of his shoulder, hoping to pull the two pieces apart from one another. The howl that had filled the room was deep and full of agony, he didn’t know at the time that it had been his howl that he’d heard that day.

The arm had been one with him, even at this point, but that didn’t stop him from trying to get it off.

Blood caked his chest, soaked the skin under his fingernails, he was screaming and yelling for someone, a blonde man, to come and save him, but he never did.

Someone hit him over the head, and everything went black.

**You are the Winter Soldier.**

_I am the Winter Soldier._

Cold. Everything was cold.

It was told that it could not feel anything, but it knew that they were wrong.

It could feel.

“Wipe it,”

It knew the weight of its metal arm was heavier than its flesh one, just by the way his body attempted to sway to the left with every stride as the weight held him down.

“Wipe it,”

It knew the feel of a sniper in its hand, and the way it felt to kill someone, completing its mission.

It felt the success of it all.

“Wipe it,”

The Winter Soldier could feel, at least in the beginning.

The more they wiped it, the less human it became. The less it felt.

“Wipe it,”

Steve awoke, his neck hurting slightly from the way he had fallen asleep on the couch, to the sounds of screams from his bedroom. He was momentarily confused, forgetting that he was no longer on the battlefield fighting alongside his friends, but in his flat in the Avengers Tower alone- _wait_.

 _Bucky_.

He ran through his apartment, nearly knocking over a table on the way, bursting into his bedroom without much thought for the door (Tony would fix it after all) and searching it for the small boy.

He finally saw him, not in the bed, but curled tightly in a ball in the corner of the room, he’d torn the pyjamas that Steve had put on him before he went to bed, off his body, and Steve wondered whether they had restricted him while he was sleeping, reminding him of something from a long time ago.

Steve knew what that felt like, cold water and ice still sending his own mind spinning when he came into contact with it.

He crouched down, close to the floor, holding his hands out in front of him, much like he had done when he’d first seen Bucky in this body.

How had that only been a few hours ago?

“Bucky?” he asked quietly, trying to get the small boy’s attention.

The screaming continued, the tiny hand Bucky now had fisting itself tightly in his long hair and pulling, as though he was trying to get something, or someone, out of his head. His body rocked backwards and forwards, the screams seeming only to help propel him from one place to the other.

“Bucky, can you hear me?”

“ _Three – two – five – five – seven – zero – three – eight,_ ”

The boy still rocked himself back and forth, his hand twisting itself tighter and tighter into his hair, the rest of the hair around his face continuing to move with the force of his body.

Steve moved himself closer, recognising the number Bucky was listing from their time together in the army, still crouching so that he didn’t scare the boy with how big he was, “Buck, it’s Steve,”

“ _Three – two – five – five – seven – zero – three – eight,_ ”

“You’re here with me, Bucky. We’re both home, and we’re both safe,”

“ _Three – two – five – five – seven – zero – three – eight,_ ”

Steve sighed, he was close enough to his friend now that reaching out and pulling his tiny body close to his own would be possible. He didn’t want to spook the boy _he’s clearly suffering enough_.

“ _Bucky_ ,” he said in as soft a voice as he could manage, “come home,” he dropped his head, his body falling so that he was now sat on his butt. He folded his knees so that they rested against his chest, his chin resting on top of them. He wanted to help Bucky as much as he could but he was so lost inside his own head that Steve touching him would end up only making him worse.

So he waited, hoping that Bucky would find his own way back.

He waited for twenty-three long, seemingly never ending, minutes, there in his bedroom, with his best friend screaming and trying his very best to pull his own hair out.

Every time the small boy whimpered he would tell him softly, “come home,”

He waited until the screams became sobs and then became whimpers. The rocks of Bucky’s body slowly became tiny shakes that made his hand lose its grip in his hair.

“Stevie?” Bucky’s voice sounded strained and almost hollow, no one should sound the way he did, especially not a child.

“Buck,”

“Where am I?”

Steve felt for the boy, “you’re in my room, in the Avengers Tower. It’s 2014, and you’re safe now,”

Bucky hugged himself tightly for a moment before reaching his arm out towards Steve, a sign that he was more than happy for Steve to touch him now. Steve took the opportunity with open arms, pulling Bucky into his arms and holding him close.

He could feel the sobs wracking through Bucky’s body, his arm gripping the back of Steve’s neck tightly.

“It’s okay, Buck,” Steve attempted to sooth, his hand holding Bucky’s head against his neck, “we’ll be okay,”

In his heart, Steve knew that he was saying this more to calm himself down than Bucky, but it seemed to work… eventually.

Steve knew when Bucky started to become restless, the boy’s grip on Steve’s neck slipping away. He pulled himself away from the boy, holding him out from him at a distance so that he could look at his face clearly.

Bucky’s face was red and blotchy, just like it whenever the two of them had an argument about Steve’s health and Bucky would end up on the floor sobbing at the thought of coming home and finding Steve dead in their bed.

Eventually, Bucky would stop crying in front of Steve, realising that he wanted to protect Steve more than he wanted anything else in the World, keeping his emotions to himself increasingly more before the war.

Crying got you a punch to the face.

And Bucky couldn’t give Steve a hand against the men around town if he was being beaten up by the guys he worked with for crying in front of them. No, he kept everything to himself.

This was one of the many reasons why Steve had struggled so continuously with Bucky since his return. Bucky had never been one for massive bouts of emotion ever since he started working at the docks, and Steve wished things could have been different.

Bucky, having been signed up for therapy as soon as he had handed himself in to SHIELD, wasn’t one for talking to his therapist. He would spend his sessions with Alice, who was nice enough, staring at the ceiling and thinking about nothing in particular.

Alice would talk to Steve, who would always wait outside during Bucky’s sessions, drawing on any little piece of paper that he could find, telling him about the absence that Bucky had in himself whenever he would sit in her room.

Steve had tried to help but he could never be enough. Not in his mind.

He vowed to himself, in that moment, staring into Bucky’s red rimmed eyes, that he would change himself to ensure that he would do the best for Bucky, especially for the time that he was stuck like _this_.

He gave Bucky a great smile, one that made Bucky smile in return, the happiness shared between them vibrant and whole as they realised that they still had each other, even after all this time.

“How about a bath?” Steve asked suddenly, noticing with glee the look of excitement on Bucky’s face. They’d never really had the opportunity to have proper baths back in the day. It was more of a wash and go situation, the two of them sharing the same bath water and trying not to let Steve get too cold for fear of him becoming even more ill.

Steve had tried to get Bucky to have baths since he himself had discovered how nice they could be, even if they did send his mind spiralling if the water became too cold.

“Please, Stevie,” Bucky nodded eagerly, his whole body shaking in Steve’s arms with the force of his nods.

Steve placed Bucky onto the floor, raising himself off the floor and into a crouching position, “I’ll race you there. Ready? Three-”

Bucky sped off, his laughter sounding out throughout Steve’s apartment. Steve shook his head, completely unsurprised by Bucky’s cheating behaviour. He chased after Bucky, but not too quickly, reaching the bathroom just in time to grab Bucky around the waist and swing him around the room before placing him back on the ground.

Steve knelt down so that he was head height with Bucky, and rubbed his arm slowly down his arm, “you sure you’re okay with having a bath?”

For the first time since Steve had mentioned it, Bucky looked slightly wary of the giant tub, his lip worried between his teeth, “couldyoucomeinwivmestevie?”

“What was that?”

Bucky sighed slightly, moving closer to Steve so that he could whisper in his ear, “could you come in wiv me, Stevie?”

A pit of dread filled Steve’s stomach, a grimace briefly crossing his face. He quickly recovered, hoping that Bucky hadn’t seen his moment of weakness, but the look in the little boy’s eye told him that he had.

“It’s not that I don’t want to, Buck,” he told him quickly, lowering himself even further to still see the boy’s face where his chin had dropped to rest against his chest. He took a deep breath, using a finger to raise Bucky’s head to look him in the eye, “I’m not exactly comfortable in big quantities of water,” he rested his other hand against Bucky’s cheek, “but we can get through it together, how does that sound?”

Bucky nodded, wrapping his arm around his naked body.

Steve gave him a small smile, moving to turn the taps on, before standing up fully and pulling his t-shirt off over his head. Once he too was completely naked, he put his hand into the bathtub, testing the temperature of the water. It was still slightly too cold.

“Would you like bubbles?” he asked, the look of confusion it caused on Bucky’s face making him laugh, “let me show you,” he said, inviting Bucky to come closer to pear over the side of the bathtub. He grabbed one of the bottles that Pepper had left for him on the side of the tub, opening the lid and sniffing slightly. The bottle told him that it smelt like marshmallows, and Steve thought of the one fire the Avengers had been to together, smores being handed out to everyone and Steve revelling in the warmth of the fire.

He poured the pink liquid into the bathtub, noting Bucky’s excitement.

The bubbles started to form almost immediately, the glee on Bucky’s face becoming even more apparent than before.

“How does it do that?” Bucky asked.

“There’s something in this liquid that reacts with the water,” Steve told the little boy, twisting the lid back onto the bottle and hiding his face so that Bucky didn’t know he was making everything up. He didn’t know why it made bubbles either, but he was too scared to ask Tony himself.

Once there was enough water in the tub, Steve turned off the taps, ensuring that the water was warm enough for the both of them.

“Ready?” he asked Bucky, turning to help him over the side.

Bucky nodded, the slight look of fear returning to his face.

After placing Bucky, standing, into the tub, Steve climbed over the side, sitting himself down against the edge with his legs open in a v wide enough for Bucky to sit between them. Bucky snuggled himself back against Steve’s chest, holding handfuls of bubbles up to his face to study them.

For the first time since Bucky had returned, Steve could see that he was completely relaxed and lost in being a child. Maybe this experience would end up being helpful for Bucky, and for himself, in more ways than one.

Steve could only live in hope.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! Just wanted to say thank you for reading, and that the next update should be longer but it might also be later. My uni classes start on Monday and I don't know how busy I am going to be so, I'll try and update again before the end of November. 
> 
> Hope you enjoyed! 
> 
> Please leave me a comment below x

**Author's Note:**

> Leave me a little comment if you'd like, I love reading them!
> 
> See you next time.


End file.
